u/jhon503

Robertson's Trading on eBay has these Herrett's round to square grips. The finish on them is pretty ugly with a yellow varnish of some sort. I also noticed the grips were proud of the back strap. The positive is they fit tight and there is a lot of wood work with.

I stripped the finish and sanded them to fit the frame. Finished with several coats of tung oil, sanding with 600 grit between coats. They now look and feel great.

Spotted the milled trigger on this filthy 640-1 on GB, which puts it as a very early model made in 1996 or 1997. I was really hoping it also had the old school hammer and rebound slide in it. As seen above, this one is almost entirely old school. The only MIM parts are the thumb piece, bolt, and cylinder stop. Not to say MIM is bad, because S&W does it right, but the older parts are just cool.

I have it soaking in Kroil to loosen up 30 years of crud. The side plate has clearly never been off of it.

This one came with a newer black thumb piece. I’m going to swap it for a Power Custom thumb piece. Mechanically this 640-1 is rock solid, definitely been carried quite a bit. I’ll follow up with more pics once I clean it up.

It's no secret if you've seen me post before, I love the stainless steel J frames. Pictured here is a 640 no dash and my most recent acquisition, a 60-4. These both date to around 1993 or 1994.

The 60-4 was one of my grail guns. As nice as the later J magnum framed guns are, the lines on the classic J frame are hard to beat.

I'm contemplating sending the 640 to D&L Sports for a set of real sights zeroed for 158gr.

Testing out some Ramshot Silhouette for .38 Special and was pretty impressed with the velocity for a standard pressure load. I'm loading a 158gr Acme coated SWC to 1.46" (crimped in the groove). Hodgdon has data for an Oregon Trail 158gr SWC at 1.46" starting at 5.2gr and max of 5.6gr.

I started at 5.3gr and worked up to 5.6gr in .1gr increments shooting 10 rounds out of the 4" 686 and 1.875" 640. The 5.6gr data is pretty impressive for a non +P load. Even the 5.3gr data was really good, ES and SD were higher. ES and SD for 5.4gr and 5.5gr were similar to what I saw with the 5.3gr load.

I guess where I'm at now is, all of these shot accurately and consistently enough for my uses. My goal was to land above 750 FPS out of the snub and the 5.3gr load definitely got me there and then some.

Any reason I should try 5.2gr? I'm thinking this a powder where case fill is important?

I know there are some fellow data lovers here, and sifting through the YouTube slop to find it can be rather annoying.

This is a short review of the S&B 158gr SJHP SB357C loading. Purchased this ammunition from SG Ammo as it was relatively reasonable at 60cpr and was a soft jacketed hollow point. Figured it could be a multi-purpose factory load.

S&B lists the velocity at 1329 FPS out of a 6" test barrel. Not sure what the other details of their testing are.

I shot this ammunition out of a 6" 19-5, 4" 686-5, and a 2 1/8" 60-9. I saw 1270 FPS out of the 6", 1208 FPS out of the 4", and 1129 FPS out of the 2 1/2". I thought the spread and SD out of the 6" was noteworthy, don't usually see that with factory ammo. Looking back, I should have shot 10 rounds through that one.

As far as accuracy goes, it's within my expectations. Nice and tight groups with the 19 and 686. The 60 is more challenging to shoot at my standard 15 yards "fighting" distance, but that's not ammo related. Keeping them in the A zone on an IPSC target at 15 yards with the 60 wasn't an issue.

Recoil out of the 19 and 686 is real pleasant. Both guns weigh within an ounce of each other. I actually like the balance of the 6" 19 a little more. You could shoot this stuff all day out of a full sized revolver.

As far as shooting it out of the 60, it was stout. 20 rounds and my hand was feeling it. I figure that is mostly due to the hard rubber Uncle Mike's combat grips. I've never shot a .357 out of a J frame before, but I did not find it hard to shoot. The recoil sucks, but with good fundamentals hits are not hard. Not suggesting one should carry .357 in a J frame, but it's nice having the option.

Overall, I think this is a decently priced factory option. I'd be curious what it would do in gel, but at the same time I'm not terribly concerned as SJHP bullets seem to work fine at .357 velocities.

I'd say she's a shooter if the guy pulling the trigger does his part. It looks like more, but this is only 12 rounds at 15 yards.

I was picking up a model 60 from my FFL, and he hands me this freshly traded in factory nickel 19-5. It was pretty rough; speckles of rust in the nickel and the hammer had a rust flower growing on it, but mechanically it was rock solid. After chewing it over, figured $500 for a good shooter was cheap in 2026.

Wish I would've taken a before pic, but it was bad. I think it was a farmer's truck gun. The internals were packed with dirt. Fortunately having been on a used S&W buying spree of late (if you're not paying attention, they are cheaper now than they were 10 years ago) I've gotten pretty good at stripping them down.

Every bit of blued steel had some sort of rust on it. Turned out the rust on the frame was from the rear sight, hammer, and bolt. It all cleaned up and the nickel, while not perfect, looks real good. No pitting on anything. I think with some gentle polishing it would be darn near perfect.

It came with the Uncle Mike's grips. Tempted to keep them as they feel real good in the hand.

Added a 1998 686-5 to the collection recently. This one was listed as a police trade in, and I lean towards agreeing with that. There's heavy wear on the grip panels and the high parts of the sights consistent with some sort of law enforcement use, however it does not appear to have been shot much. The presence of a painted on rack number on the grip and condition have me thinking it may have came from a state corrections agency.

The -5 models don't get enough love compared to the -4 in my opinion. Old fashioned roll marks, modern frame and internals, no internal lock.

My LGS had this 640 "no dash", complete with Uncle Mikes Boot Grips, sitting in the used gun case. Didn't look like it had been fired much, if at all, as there was zero carbon it. Couldn't say no for 4 bills and now my well loved 442 has a partner. Forgot how good the old school Uncle Mikes grips feel.

Got a chance to run some drills with the new OEM 15rd mags in my basic no frills 43X. No issues to report, they drop free in this gun. This was a blue label I picked up earlier this year, so it’s likely one of the last of the no rail models produced. I guess at some point the non-railed frames were also updated.

I have this one, a 43X MOS, and a 48 MOS. I hate to say it, but I kind of like the basic 43X the most. It’s small and light. Very easy gun to carry and with the 15 round mags it’s more than enough gun most of the time.

Snagged this Ramshot Silhouette for $29.75 a pound at my local Bi-Mart. I snagged all they had. Now to work up a 180gr .40 load with it.

I've been on a bit of a .40 kick (as seen in my 22C post) and found this Glock 35.4 MOS for sale locally. These are somewhat uncommon, and the price was excellent. I'm not sure that I'll run an optic on it, but it sold for what a non MOS model goes for. The Zev trigger is likely going to get swapped for a well polished Gen 4 trigger bar.

Then I made a trip to my local blue label dealer and made the mistake of fondling a 45.6 with the COA. I didn't think the Gen 6 grip would be such a noticeable improvement over my 3, 4, and 5 guns but it really is fantastic.

I told my wife I might sell my 17.5, but I'm not sure I can part with it. It's a fantastic gun and also somewhat uncommon. The 19.5 will go to the grave with me.